Tourist Trap

I'm not a world traveler, though I did get my passport a few years ago. Just in case.

In fact, I've only left the good old U.S. of A. once. I was a fifth grader on a family trip to California. We crossed into Mexico, where we weren't allowed to drink or eat a thing until we returned to California mid-afternoon. We kids thought we were going to absolutely starve to death. In my parents' defense, they had a car filled with four kids, ages 11 and younger. Would you have wanted to chance a bout (or four bouts) of Montezuma's revenge? From my parental perspective today, it makes total sense that we were banned from brunching in Mexico. 

So, what's been my most memorable family vacation? That's what the ladies at Lovely Branches Ministries wanted to know this month. On the same family trip, I snapped picture after picture of the flower-covered floats in the Rose Parade. Too bad they were all in black and white. (See? My camera clicking began early. Randy is grateful every day for the advent of digital photography.)

Since Randy and I have been married, we've certainly visited some wonderful places. Our honeymoon was memorable. I snowskied for the very first time in March 1981 on icy Rocky Mountain slopes. My new hubby might not have been Olympic-caliber like Billy Kidd, but he'd been skiing several times. Throw in an agonizing toothache one night to go with muscles stiff from trying to stop myself from falling down a mountain: That's memorable. (For any newly engaged couples planning a honeymoon, I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but we have been celebrating anniversaries for 32 years now.)

We've done Disney World with Jill and Brent. (They will be thrilled I shared this photo.)

Two years ago, we left drought-stricken Kansas because my farmer husband was weary of watching our crops burn to a crisp. I'd say the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was a worthy distraction. 
So were the Grand Tetons.

Within this space, the Creator
must have intended
to bring man in humility to his knees.
-- Margaret E. Murrie, 

Grand Teton Official National Park Handbook, 1984 

When Jill was at Vanderbilt for her dietetics internship, we loved visiting Nashville, whether it was music row or the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens.

We found plenty to do and see when Jill and Eric lived in Omaha, including the solitude and beauty of the Holy Family Shrine.

Brent's work on his master's degree took us to South Carolina where there was more Spanish moss than the cottonwoods of Kansas.

Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

We made a side trip to Tybee Island, Georgia, where we watched the sun rise and where there were waves of water, not waves of wheat. Moving Brent to his first job took us to Kentucky and Morehead State University's beautiful Eagle Lake.

Eagle Lake, Morehead, KY, September 2012

It is a place to savor nature in all its glory, whether it's bathed in the humidity of a late summer day or the brisk, catch-your-breath bite of winter. 

 

Some of my favorite places recently have been zoos with our granddaughter, Kinley.

Those vacation images barely scratch the surface hidden among the 27,000-plus digital photos I have on my computer and the dozens of plastic tubs filled with film envelopes in my basement. 

So I was stopped in my tracks by a line in a book I was reading last month, RESTART Your Church by Dottie Escobedo-Frank:

Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mind-set.

Eugene Peterson

The author was quoting Eugene Peterson, who translated the Bible into The Message:The Bible in Contemporary Language.

Escobedo-Frank explains her take on that statement:

A tourist merely visits a location, taking pictures, getting an overview and seeing sites from a distant viewpoint. A tourist thinks it might be great to live in the locale but is not ready to change addresses in order to know the life of the town he or she is visiting. A tourist Christian is one who is merely ogling the lifestyle without developing a relationship with the town mayor and with the townspeople. Tourist Christianity is unwilling to suffer, sacrifice or remain faithful.

From the book RESTART Your Church by Dottie Escobedo-Frank

I don't know why I'm surprised when things like blog themes and the book I happen to be reading fit together like puzzle pieces. My friend and fellow LBM blogger, Keva, would call it a God Wink. I would have to concur.

It reminded me, too, that beauty is in my backyard every day. I don't have to travel to Mount Rushmore to find it. I don't have to pack my carry-on for a weekend trip to Chicago. It is all around me, every single day.

If you begin to live life 

looking for the God 

that is all around you,

 every moment becomes a prayer. 

–Frank Bianco, U.S. journalist and photographer

It's hard to miss the beauty in the "big" things ... the mountains, the ocean and monuments. But sometimes, in our haste to look forward to the next "big thing," we miss the myriad of small things around every single day. 

Beauty is found in the church pews, seeing the familiar faces, week after week. It's in the faces and voices of the children who sometimes skip up the church aisle to children's story time. It's found as we make apple butter in the church kitchen for the annual United Methodist Women bazaar. It's nestled next to the box of crayons that someone brought to the church for the school supplies collection drive.

It's found along the ditches as I walk along my dirt road.

Today, I will cherish the small things ... the tomato fresh from the vine, a favorite song on the radio, a phone call, the touch of a hand, the compliment I don't think I deserve, the email from a friend, the smell of freshly-turned earth on an early morning walk, a cool house on a hot day. Small blessings abound, if we just pause to look for them. They don't have to be carved into rock in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I want to look at my everyday places with the eyes and the wonder of a tourist. But it needs to be more than that. I don't want to just "ogle the lifestyle." I want to live it in the way that God calls me to be a part of it. It's all about getting to know the Mayor Himself. Then it's about listening to His voice as He urges me to be His hands and feet on this beautiful Earth - whether I'm here on the County Line in Kansas or on a mountaintop in Colorado.

***

When we visited Brent in Columbia, S.C., in 2011,  we had an non-traditional Thanksgiving meal,  including shrimp we bought right off the dock.
If you'd like the recipe for Baked Shrimp Scampi and Cheese Grits, just click on this link. After visiting the south, I add cheese grits to our menu here in Kansas on occasion. And every time I eat them, I think of those shrimp boats at sunset in Mount Pleasant, S.C.